


slam poetry is for the least of us

by feltstrips



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Humor, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, Mid 2000's AU, Rewrite, Sibling Incest, Stream of Consciousness, ive changed the title like twice and will probably change it again
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-21
Updated: 2019-01-14
Packaged: 2019-06-30 11:41:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15750951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feltstrips/pseuds/feltstrips
Summary: You've made your bed, and now you have to sleep in it.





	1. horse case

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stridercore](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stridercore/gifts), [quenive](https://archiveofourown.org/users/quenive/gifts).



> if youve ever read "im wide awake, it's morning" this is the same story but intensively rewritten. also i didnt rip the title off a lua album this time. 
> 
> note within a note: these are SUPER SHORT CHAPTERS, in an effort to stay true to the og, so that means ill actually be able to update it regularly. crazy

"Respectfully, what the fuck is this?"

Dave moves his webcam, head momentarily clipping out of frame. When he wobbles back into view he's barely grinning, a garish party hat sitting lopsided on his head.

"What? I thought you'd appreciate something that wasn't fucken' overplayed when it comes to birthday gifts- like, a pony or whatever."

Staring dead into his eyes, you reach into the torn-open box on your desk and grab your gift by the dinky little neck.

"A goddamn ukulele." You say, accusatory, and hold it up to the webcam. Dave shrugs. His party hat wiggles. 

"Hell yes, I did. Can't you feel the heartfelt intentions oozing from me? I'm the tit of the Virgin Mary, you're--"

You cut him off real fast, saying “Whoa, dude. Too drunk for metaphors,” with an exaggerated lip curl to pull the point across. He accepts the benefit and mercifully abandons that verbal disaster. 

Setting the ukulele down with a twang-thump, you move on to your next package. It's- it's a lot uglier, lumpy and covered with must be twice the necessary amount of packing tape. It takes a while for your stubbed fingernails to pick into that mess, and even longer to track down a pair of scissors when you get to the blister wrap. Blister wrap. The fuck, dude. But you soldier through it, and Dave chuckles to himself as you cut free his gift; a brand-spankin'-new My Little Pony ukulele case. The predominant color is eye-watering, holographic pink, and the label confirms it as "Official Merchandise!!!" You burst into laughter. Dave looks delighted, which is nice to see; your brother's usually too exhausted (wasted) after hours of director-ing to even crack a fart joke, much less beam his dimples off. 

“ ‘Kay, I lied, that's kinda a pony. It involves horses, so,” He says, mixing “horses” and “involves” to the glorious final product of _invlorshses,_ “You only turn seventeen once, broski.” 

"Jesus Christ, where do you even find this shit?" You ask, spinning the case in your hands and appraising the quality. Not going to say you love it, but you fucking love it. Dave leans back, hands hooked behind his head.

"Y'know. Amazon Prime, whiskey, free time. Good recipe for a rabbit hole." He says, smug like alcoholism and supporting Amazon makes him a Tarantino character. 

You go for the uke again, flipping it in turn. The strings twang whenever you brush your fingers over them. You hope it's horrendously out of tune, cause' like- damn. Sounds shitty. It looks too-small as well; a toy, almost, which shouldn't invoke criticism. You just cried tears of joy over a MLP case, for god's sake. Still feels immature, bruising your ego even though it is, frankly, beautiful (expensive-looking). Seems like a lot of money to waste when you inevitably misstep and crush it two weeks from now. You think positive and strum it. Sounds shitty.

"Mm, you'll figure it out. Three days and you'll be playing tiptoe through the tulips."

"Tiny Tim jokes. Eloquent," You smile, lean forward to switch off the webcam. "Go to bed, you knockoff Jason Reitman." 

He grumbles at that, flips you the bird. "Love you too, y' Juno background character."

“Ow.” What goes around comes around.

The screen darkens, and you're back to your regularly scheduled program: solitary confinement. Me and me and the devil make three. Well, you guess it's more like a ukulele and me and the devil etc. etc, which would make one crapshoot of a folk song. A couple minutes fiddling with the aforementioned instrument to “tune it” results in nothing but it sounding worse, so you give up and head to bed. You don't really have any intention of sleeping, but laying in your bed and staring at the ceiling is a bit better than fucking with that thing. It's zipped up, ignored, la di da. Waiting for the scheduled stepping-on.

At least, that's your plan. Besides the usual brain-bees keeping you awake, buzzing scraps of guilt have joined the party (hive). Your busyass brother found time to pick something out and delivered it all the way from LA in time for your birthday. For you. Fucker has your heartstrings tangled in his fist. With a slight groan, you tell yourself to get up. Radio silence from your muscles. _Okay, C'mon, Dirk. Don't make me break out the big guns_ and whoop, your feet are on the floor, phone in hand ‘cause the big guns involve mental squirt gun torture and daddy issues. Uh, parental figure issues. You don't have a daddy and _you promised not to break out the big guns._

Anyway. You dredge up a tuner app pretty fast and stumble over to retrieve the borderline-luminescent case as it downloads. The phone beeps to confirm the install after you pluck at the strings some. You eye the screen and hold the frets and turn the tuning pegs and all that according to the steps flashing one by one. Doesn't sound that bad out of tune, really. The trick is to avoid strumming it. Or thinking about chords. Or letting your fingers touch more than one string at a time because then the spirit of Hawaii will personally come out of the soundhole and beat you over the head with a coconut, but translated into music. Easy stuff.

The app is way too compensating, even has a voice-over, and you try to not let it grate on your nerves. With Siri-on-Xanax droning instructions at you, it takes you awhile to finish tuning. You probably look like a loser, intently leaning over a miniature guitar with your hair in your face and your phone repeating _five cents sharp, wind the key clockwise_ like a broken record. But you get that over with and the uke sounds really good. Relaxingly good, though you don't take the time to learn much, just work out simple ditties. They're repetitive, soothing, and the strings feel kinda nice brushing your fingertips. One of the patterns reminds you of a song you pirated a while ago, which leads to you scouring your library for acoustic songs to learn by ear. Actually using all those notes and shit is for chumps. 

There are, in fact, several remixed copies of string songs in the collection, and you copy the main riffs from some. Basically, you're claiming songs meant for a bass clarinet and playing them on the piccolo. After that's boring, you break open your secret indie music stash. “Secret” because, well- not that you don't love the Strider-brand of weirdo rap, but sometimes you gotta be an insufferable hipster and enjoy some Mumford and Sons. If you've got any proper ukulele songs, this's the place to find them.

You're midway through what you think might be "Bright Mouths", Alvin and the Chipmunks cover when your phone lights up again. It's a pester from Jane, and when you don't answer instantly she follows that up with a proper text, then two, then three. You hesitate, reach for it, back off and decide to ignore her altogether, which disappoints you as your own decision. Like- there's nothing good she could be texting/pestering you about at ten o clock on a Wednesday, really, so this is for the best.

You find you've just zoned out with the uke sitting pretty in your lap and your phone tinnily blasting the intro to "Lua". You're pretty sure this one is from a video game. It's a good song, if a little mopey. Very mopey. Plain depressing, honestly. God, you're so emo.

_I know that it is raining, but I think we have to walk…_

Conor Oberst waxing poetic about loneliness and pigeons seems to flood your room. You listen, figure out the gist of it with some struggle, and soon you're quietly playing and singing along.

_...I've got a flask inside my pocket, we can share it on the train…_

Your voice isn't anything special, filled with cracks and bad pitches, but you're not singing for anyone else. Be one with the melancholy teen movie character, god, Dave was totally fucking right about the Juno joke, damn him. "Lua" fades out with a final line about simplicity being deceiving, and you're feeling tight in the chest. Dunno what hit the sad part of you- the lovesick alcoholic's perspective (gay) or the stark loneliness of the lyrics. You're definitely going to cry about it. Quietly, so your masculinity doesn't hear. 

It takes the start of the next song to set you off as promised, ache-hot tears sliding off your nose and hitting the ukulele. Fuck, great, now you're faggot [Taylor Swift](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKCek6_dB0M). And you miss your goddamn brother. 

Let's play two truths and a lie. One: He's a dick. Two: He's left you to the apartment-dwelling wolves for years. Three: You're still president of the Dave Strider fan club and you hate him and yourself about equally for that. Five seconds to answer, _1 2 345_ trick question, trick game you're telling the truth through and through. Hah hah, canned booing from the studio audience. Get your money back next time, folks. 

Sniveling isn't going to change your life, so you're just going to go to sleep. Stop thinking about him, about any of this. You take a second and gently zip the gift back into the case. It rests against your mattress as you try and drift off.


	2. pot themed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAH did i say i was like, gonna update this regularly? yeah i wish. 
> 
>  
> 
> p.s. also this is apparently an AU where dirk's birthday is fucken august 3rd because i didnt check his bday before i wrote this and its set in the summer. oof.

Slipping daylight catches your eye, hangs there, paints the world a burning gold. It's sunset over a city of floodlights, ticking to life one by one, competing to get there like a retired racehorse- watch me, watch me, I can light us up before the sun's even down. It's surreal. Redundant. A whole-ass environment of redundant, unnecessary light pollution, a glimmering glowworm colony with the log rolled off. 

As it goes with nature and sunsets and the like, the clouds fade from gold to bluish (bluu-sh. Like blush, but on a drowning victim). The streetlights remain an unwavering constant. If looking for continued determination when faced with the fundamental obsolescence of one's existence, you'd be fuckin' hard-pressed to find a more prime example than a streetlight. You ain't fond of them, really, as you aren't (ain't) fond of any inorganic light sources. You find them to be a waste, just garish corporate signs, all because you read Fight Club that one time and still sort of want to fuck Brad Pitt. Yeah. It's a mystery for the ages how you live in the heart of Houston, Texas without throwing chronic hissy fits.

Oh, but you've got the best seat in the house. On top of the house. You're on the roof, actually, living your best life up with the pigeon shit, ten-billion-foot drop, and a skyline to kill for. Whatever the city lights may be from a practical standpoint, you have to admit, the view up here is pretty rad. And, yknow, you've spent a lot of your youth up here. The infamous roof of your apartment complex will always be an escape from the miscellaneous stress of life. A place to chill out, smoke in peace. Maybe have the occasional rap ‘sesh, as you stylishly say it, slurring your s'es like there's no tomorrow.

Also, your house is so fucking empty and the summer is this close to being over. You can't stand it. Give me homework or give me death, because you _can-not_ cannot occupy yourself with anything but weed now. 

With a jaw-cracking yawn, you snuff out the roach of your latest blunt and lay back, flick the charred scrap of rolling paper in the direction of your ashtray. Near-miss. The sky's paneled from bluish all the way to gunmetal, which is pretty much as dark as it gets around here. Empty-open grey, unblemished for miles. The lack of stars always bothers you when you lie down. Maybe it's the high you're nursing, but it always seems as if the sky is so endlessly vast without the safety net of constellations that you'll fall into it and drown. Not that you've ever seen stars beyond a computer screen, but the sentiment still stands. Like nostalgia from memories that don't exist.

Yeah, definitely the weed. You fumble for your phone, wincing at the bright screen as you check the time. Already ten thirty. The entire day's flown by.

The problem with living alone is that every day is a struggle to occupy yourself. Meaningless bullshit, while originally intended to fill the cracks between productivity, has a habit of spilling over and expanding until schedules and plans dissolve into hours of playing Poptropica. You weren't even into that shit as a kid. 

Jesus Christ, you're up to your fucking eyeballs in projects. Without the rigidity of your (online) course schedule to set a skeleton for some actual work, all you do is waste time. The lament of the “gifted kid”; I used to be good at this, used to be brilliant, used to be a human shock factor, used to used to be good at being me. Now just give me Adderall or give me death, amen. 

Enough melodrama. You grab your ashtray-- dumping it over the edge of the roof, sucks for anyone with a window open-- and the scraps of metal you'd been tinkering with, shoving the whole mess into your bag. Your sword goes through the handles of the backpack, to jab you in the ass as usual. In several practiced movements, you swing yourself onto the edge of the roof. For a moment you're upright, body balancing above itself, but gravity grabs hold and you're over and out. The concrete lip surrounding the drop digs raw lines into your hands and your feet hit the wall with a thud. You stick there like some civilian spiderman, soaking in the miles of free air beneath, the knowledge that fate has you, and drop your sneakers safely to the windowsill. 

Your heart races dizzyingly as you clamber into your room. Admittedly, you're an adrenaline junkie, and the roof-to-window trick will never get old. _I'm Dirk Strider and this is Jackass: City Skylines._ A laugh forces its way out of your chest as you dig your toes into your carpet, rough and obnoxiously loud. Almost surprises you.

The ashtray and katana clatter to your desk, you go equally loudly into your swivel chair. The momentum sends it rolling across the floor, and you indulge in a moment of spinning around like an idiot, your head lolling back against the headrest. When it stops being fun you grab the edge of your desk, ignoring the way your monitor wobbles at the jostle, and pull flush to your computer. Roxy has been pestering you off the hook pretty much since the sun went down. You can't really blame her. 

tipsyGnostalgic [TG] began pestering timaeusTestified [TT] 

TG: dirk

TG: dirk

TG: dirk

TG: dirk

TG: dirk

TG: dirk

TG: dirk

TG: dirk

TT: Christ. 

TG: oh dont you shittin christ me ive been fucking trying to get ahold of you fordays now you elusive motherfucker

TG: is your phone busted or somethin like what the shit

TT: No. My connection's been spotty.

TT: God, I just keep scrolling and the "Dirk"s won't stop coming. 

TT: Fed to the rules and I hit the ground running.

TT: Don't make sense not to live for fun. 

TG: wooooooowww first i hear from you in FOREVER and its fucken 

TG: all star lyrics fuck u 

TG: but yeah dude ive been copypasting thos dirks for such a long time fuck

TG: how many time does a gal gotta say your name 

TG: never even got 2 wish you a happy bday dammit!!!

TT: What are you talking about? My birthday was like, three weeks ago.

TG: yeah and thats how freakin long its been since ive talked to you maybe more

TT: Shit. Sorry.

TG: uh huh whatever 

TG: janes flipped her wig a LONG time ago you need to message her

TG: shes real pissy and honestly??? on you

TT: Yeah. That's why I ditched Pesterchum on my phone.

TT: She was alternating between scarily passive aggressive and scarily compassionate.

TG: holy shit you uninstalled even haha fuuuck 

TG: whyre you being so damn CAGEY like even jakes pretty convinced you died

TG: didnt think you had a fucken thing for chastity so go and get your DICK up and on outta this CAGE MAN sheeit 

TT: I'm not being cagey. I've just been busy. 

TG: yeah fuckoff whatve you been so busy with you wont talk to me for three weeks??

TG: hello!!?? 

TG: dirk cmon

TT: Brb. Rolling.

TG: really youre gonna pull that

timaeusTestified [TT] ceased pestering tipsyGnostalgic [TG] 

By "rolling" you meant in your chair, because you can't think of a better excuse to blow her off and she understands the nuances of stoner-ing, at least. A few keystrokes closes out Pesterchum and pull up your music library. You don't really feel like tracking down anything good, so you just hit shuffle and push away again, back into orbit. As you rotate slowly, seasick and staring at the ceiling, G.O.A.T by Watsky starts blasting.

The urge to scream _OH MY God I LOVE this song_ like some drunk chick at a wedding reception strikes you and sends you into practical hysterics. Someone toss you the bouquet, quick, you're marrying the fucking Dj. Two songs later, you’ve skipped the Casually Amused Human Being phase and gone straight to rolling around on the floor, despite the fact that You are a Normal Human being and you do not find it that funny that a rapper made a dick joke. There are actual tears of laughter on your face. 

You recover some when some video game soundtrack song comes on out of the blue, dredged up from the depths of your library. Soberly, you realize that you really want to play along. Do you dare? Are you willing to sink to the level of 8-bit ukulele covers?

Yep. You make a beeline for that horrible fucking pony case. It doesn't take long for you to end up back on the floor, ukulele held above you in a bullshit outstretched pose as you plink out the song. The tempo is slightly off and you just can't quite find the right key, but it's fun. Not bad, sonny, now what the hell are you trying to do with your arms? 

Instinctively, you pull up your camera app and shoot a quick video, sitting up this time. The main tune isn't that hard- and you basically have it memorized, yet you inevitably mess up and swear-giggle to go with. Totally ruins the audio, but whatever. You'll just send it to Dave with a badly-misspelled caption later. Maybe he'd get a kick out of it- probably like hearing that you were using his gift, at least.

You're also gonna stick a worm in there so that if he sends it to anyone his phone will blow up. Or something. No one must know, obviously, but the idea of him watching your video has you smiling, even as you get up to meander elsewhere, uke tossed to the bed for later repackaging.

Every bit of random junk strewn about the place makes a valiant effort to break your toes, but you make it into the kitchen in one piece. No idea where you got all the rebar, or why it's everywhere, but god damn if it isn't a pain in the- toes. In the toes. Yeah. Fuck. The cabinets stare you down soon as you walk in, silently accusing you of self-starvation with their nonexistent particle-board eyes. They see all and squeak bloody murder when you open them. Look, just because you hadn't eaten all day don't mean you need the theatrics, ladies. 

The cabinets are undeniably ladies, and yes, everything is getting personified now. Sentient rebar, sentient cabinets, and a 50% sentient teenager. Full house. A Jenga-shuffle of your snack box hoard produces a handful of cellophane goodies, and you return to the floor in triumph. Nothing like a bounty of tasteless, stale granola bars that'll totally shed crumbs all over your shirt. But food is food, y’know, so break out the dustpan.

Spread eagle, right in the middle of the kitchen floor, you're sweating, and that is a complaint in itself. The night is almost illegally hot. But also it's August, so everything's legal, you guess, Mama Nature's tossing the baby out with the bathwater. Perfect weather to lay around and be a useless stoner. The cool linoleum feels good against your face, and you find yourself slowly content. That 8-bit song runs through your hear, not gonna get that earworm out for a while, but you're good with it. You're pretty good with everything right now. You stuff the last of the granola bar in your mouth and almost taste it. Could be honey flavor. Not quite sure.

You're in the process of a real good daydream ( _no hella jeff I can pick up the check_ ) and fiddling with the rubber band in your ponytail when you hear the doorknob rattle. Scares the fuck out of you, and the shitty old thing breaks as your hand jerks in surprise. Your hair spills out in waves across your face, right, you need a haircut, Mr. emo bangs, and that’s really not what you need to think about when someone’s breaking in. You’ve just barely gotten back on your feet when the door swings open. 

"Holy fuck, kid. Don't shit yourself, it's just me."

Alright, cool, it's Dave. You blow your bangs out of your face and lean into the counter, wait for your heart rate to go back to normal. It doesn't really hit for a solid five seconds. The thought process is basically _Wait, Dave? Here? Not skype? I’m never smoking again,_ so, honestly. You blink, stand up straight. He raises his eyebrows and drops his luggage. 

“Shit, you’re-”

"I'm back early, yeah,” He says, a grin crawling across his face, and you nod a couple times in rapid succession. Not to be dramatic or anything, but [ladies and gentlemen, we have lost cabin pressure.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DqDTx9CVsAAXEup.jpg)

He runs a hand through his hair, leaving it sticking up straight, and sigh-chuckles a little in your direction. You must look like a deer in headlights. 

"Come on, don't I get a hug?" You full-body yank him over, he goes _whoa_ and stumbles and nearly sends both of you into the floor. You catch him, almost, hug him a little too hard, taking a moment to appreciate the here and now and his stupid fucking hair, which is now stuck up your nostrils. You would cry if that wouldn't be mortifying.

"Whoof,” He says, actually saying whoof like that’s a thing people do, “someone's excited."

“Yeah,” you mutter, and he actually squeezes you back. But a guy can only tolerate your hydraulic-press grip for a so long, so he pats you hard on the back, man-cueing you to let the fuck go, dude. You oblige. Reluctantly. Like- he’s warm, okay, and he smells a lot like tiger balm and dry shampoo which is a surprisingly bittersweet combination, sue you for being clingy. 

“So, uh,” you say, clearing your throat, “what gives? I thought you had another month on set.” _Yeah, salvage that dignity!_

"A bunch of boring Hollywood stuff gives. I'll spare you the riveting details for now,” He says, reaching for his bags. They clink suspiciously when he slings them over his shoulder. You really don’t want to know how many airplane bottles he’s got in there. 

“Informative.”

“I live to please,” he says, and he steps on your granola bar massacre on the way to his room, crunches it into dust.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have ACTUALLY lost count of how many fight club quotes ive muscled in here. the next chapter is just the entire fucking script with hyperlinks to homestuck pages


	3. subtle or not

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> watch me wait another 3 months before posting chapter 4

Sometimes, you think that if you didn't hate the ethical/psychological basis of the advertising industry, you would make an absolute fucking killing in marketing. Nobody knows how to brand something like you do. Case in point; the perpetual development of your personal calling card, the hallmark, the screaming, blazing, surprisingly subtle force of _Dirk Strider, professional whatever he is_. You project exactly what you intend to, and the process is lovingly built around things that are arguably detrimental to general health, objects and/or media that are widely considered awful, and simply put, being a facetious prick. Dictionary definition. 

Or, y'know, maybe you don't really manage any of that, and someday somebody's gonna hold a mirror up to your ass so you can see how full of shit you are. That's an original aphorism (if that is an aphorism at all, you don't know and Google is fucking impossible to use for literary devices. You wish you could just create some version of yourself that would act as a search engine or something, but modern pseudorobotics just isn't there yet). 

You've considered the idea that it's a family trait whilst analyzing SBaHJ, aka Dave's beautifully overworked, everfresh brainchild. Or brain-miscarriage. Whichever is more accurate, and considering how much coke he's on when he writes the scripts, you're voting for the latter. No mindbaby could survive that much secondhand blow and be birthed intact. There's a strong possibility that he, as an ex-comic artist, never could have kept churning out Movives before the '90s happened and he met Daniel Baldwin. To backtrack, however, the similarities between his legendary work and your currently abeyant productions stop at “intentionally low-quality”. You would say ironic, but you've used that word so much that saying it one more fucking time is going to drive you into a cave in the hills where you'll be a very sincere hermit for the rest of your days. Also, abeyant is a really good word. But where Dave creates the world's smartest drivel, you're more of a connoisseur, a collector. You hoard awful fetish art and unhealthily sexualized material like it's going out of style, which it is, in a way, if you consider “never in style” to be going out of style. 

As such, it's no surprise that you're startlingly awake at 4 AM on the dot, trying your damnedest to make Mac ‘N Cheese. Breakfast of champions, right? 

Insofar you've procured a pot from the felt-studded jumble of cookware in your cabinet along with what looked to be your last box of Great Value® Easy Peasy Instant Macaroni® (Vehemently double-trademarked by Walmart® despite the product's blatant Kraft® inspiration). You set an eyeballed amount of water to boil, leaning against the counter when you're done. It's too early for this. That, you are well aware of, if you're aware of nothing else. You've kind of fucked your body's chemistry so bad that you're only hungry at godforsaken hours of the morning, so this stunt is a fairly common theme.

The burner is on high. The water seems to be taking far too long to boil, but who times this shit? Give you space to think, and you're halfway through planning out a new prototype (the jury of little engineers you keep hostage in your steel trap-like brain is out on the most capital decision in the entire robotics process; whether to call it Anbroid Mach.No 15 or The Something-inator) when you hear a loud, bullish sigh from the other room. 

“Bullish” is the correct terminology because when you hear it, the first explanation your poor, tired self scrapes together is that since you live alone, a large animal must have crept into the apartment when you weren't looking. Your lizard brain takes over and you freeze for the half second it takes you to remember that Dave's home. Cool it, raised hackles. Needless to say, you're overly accustomed to solitude, and so you'd been the opposite of quiet and considerate whilst collecting Mac ‘N Cheese supplies. Must have woken him up. Pots are loud.

Soon, he's going to drag himself into the kitchen to follow up his pointed sigh with a barrage of mixed-metaphor complaints. You'd bet good money on it, at least. Last time you checked he never misses an excuse to fuck up his sleep schedule. But maybe he'd changed for the better in the past two months. Somehow you doubt it, but miracles can happen.

Right on cue, your brother walks in, sucking back a bloody nose. Your heart kinda sinks a little, but you've gotten used to his nose springing a leak at the slightest notice, so you just frown disapprovingly and spare him the D.A.R.E speech. His neck is cocked back so far you can almost hear it creaking, and you catch a glimpse of his eyes peeking out from under his glasses; just the spiky fringe of his lashes, really, but Scarlett O'Hara ain't got nothing on those. The juxtaposition is strange. 

You keep your shades on until wearing them interferes with common sense, like now, when the only illumination is the stove's overhead light and the faint orangish halo glowing from the window. Dave, apparently, didn't get the memo that it's almost pitch black and has those fucking horse blinders on. All you can do is watch as he walks into the edge of the table. 

It's like he thinks you're trying to snoop; seeing his eyes was akin to seeing your brother naked, at least according to Dave himself, but you've caught fleeting glimpses of both his dick and those peepers in the past. Off-and-on living together in a one bedroom apartment will do that. They're as red as yours are orange, so god knows why he's self-conscious. We're all freaks down here. 

He catches you looking and abruptly brings his chin back down, clears his throat wetly. Blood resumes flowing out his nose with renewed vigor. 

You quirk an eyebrow and silently pull the roll of paper towels from the holder, toss it at him. He catches successfully despite the telltale sluggishness of his movements. Looks like he was probably asleep- that makes one of you.

“Don't think red's my color?”

“In clothing? Sure. In sanguineous liquids, however, it's a solid no,” you say. He snorts, not thinking of the consequences, and a spray of blood splatters down his front. Goodbye to that white undershirt, you guess. What a horror show. 

Dave just sighs through his mouth and sits himself down at the table, starts stuffing little strips of paper towel up his nose. You go back to your pot of finally boiling water. It may have been left alone for a tad too long; there's a lot more steam than liquid when you open the lid, and you have to jerk back to avoid getting scalded. 

Step one down. Your recollection of the instructions is fuzzy, but you can't bother to reread the directions on the box even though it's right next to your elbow. Honestly, who has time to turn the fucken' thing over seven times and still get a faceful of nutrition information no matter how you flip it? They put the stovetop instructions on the 5th dimension of the box, you're sure of it. Goddamn lousy Walmart. You just dump the noodles in and hope for the best, but the best is unforthcoming as the box's one and only cheese packet makes an Olympic-level dive into the rolling boil. 

“So what's going down, other than you waking the dead at the fucken' asscrack of dawn?” He asks, speaking unusually loud. You're a little preoccupied with attempting to fish out the packet without scalding yourself, so you ignore the bait and grunt noncommittally. It's not even dawn yet. You cordially refrain from notifying him.

You can hear him leaning back in his chair- the legs groan bitterly beneath his shifting weight- and your quest for the holy cheese packet notwithstanding, you can just sense that he's doing that o-mouthed “shocked” face of his that makes him look like a hopped up 70's starlet. 

“You're trying to burn the house down, huh? I always had an inkling that I was gonna go out in a Dirk-induced murder-suicide.” He says.

“If I wanted to kill you, I'd go for more of a grand gesture,” you shoot back, “Like impaling both myself and you through the heart on a single spit.”

“Gay,” he says, and then yelps as the chair briefly leans an inch too far. You nod. His chair's front legs return to the floor with a solid, resounding thud.

You retrieve the packet eventually and with no small amount of effort as you, amazingly, didn't think to grab the tongs for at least a minute. The fruit of your labors is slapped onto the counter with a fleshy slapping sound. It's soaked. You're gonna make it work.

“Wow,” He says, with the inflection of a seasoned backseat driver, “You're all kinds of screwed up there, dude. Fucken' menagerie of wonky.” 

“Y'think I don't know that?” Man, you're just passing out the eloquent responses like cheap cigars today.

Around twice the average preparation time for box Mac ‘N Cheese later, Dave has transitioned from “sleepy” to “comatose on the table” and you've got two neon bowls of pasta. Normally you'd fall victim to gluttony and eat the whole box yourself, but you figured that you may as well provide Dave with breakfast. Of a sort. You did wake him up, after all, and anyone with a coke nosebleed should be pitied at least a little.

You slide into the remaining chair with a bowl in each hand. Dave doesn't move. You drop the bowl in front of him as noisily as possible, and the stray macaroni flinging into his hair gets him up; he slowly raises his head with this absurd look on his face and red-soaked paper stuck to his upper lip. The circles under his eyes are so dark they look bruised, yet he looks younger, like some scrappy teenager who lost a fight. 

“Oh. 'S for me,” He mutters. 

You nod, your mouth already full and your tongue coated with weird, oily, horrendously fake cheese. You're in total bliss. In your humble opinion you can't go wrong with dubious Mac ‘N Cheese, but belatedly, you realize that Dave has probably been living off caviar and champagne for the past two months. You could have made him something less bachelor pad, for fuck's sake. You have standards to maintain, after all (no, you don't, but it's his you've got a stick up your ass about). 

“This isn't exactly some welcome-home-meal-style shit, man. I kind of forgot you were here,” you say, knowing that'll function as an apology. 

To your surprise, he bolts upright and reaches across the table like he wants to grab your hands, and that's exactly what he does. It totally doesn't scare you in the slightest, but you may have jumped a little as a joke. He fumbles to lace your fingers together. His hands are long-palmed and long-fingered, soft and warm despite their knobbiness, and it's bizarre how well your own calloused digits fit between his. You swallow hard to get the noodles down and try to pull away, but he's not budging. 

"And here you're calling me gay for transversal impalement,” You say. He stares at you steadily. You find yourself increasingly unnerved and doubly suspicious of his sobriety. 

“Dirk, dude, if there's one thing I‘ve been repeating to myself like a holy fucken' mantra for what feels like forever, it's whoa, holy shit, I would totally kill someone right now for some goddamn boxed macaroni,” He says all in a rush, genuinely sounding impassioned, “I owe you my life and my clean criminal record.”

“What the fuck?” You say flatly, and try to wrestle your hands away again. He manhandles them flush to his chest in response, as if he's legitimately delivering a mantra. 

“Do you even know how much fancy, stick-up-your-ass-so-far-it's-choking-you continental breakfast bull-sheit I've had to put up with?” His hands tighten around yours as he continues, and his expression was nothing short of rapturous. He officially has been spending too much time around Ben Stiller. 

“I miss living like a college student with you.” In all honesty, that both irked you and tugged at your historically fist-bound heartstrings. For one, here was Dave, telling you in what had a 50% chance of being all honesty that he's been missing you (or possibly just your food). For the other, here's this douchebag, taking a life of glamour for advantage in favor of some relatively shitty hoarderesque apartment.

You decide on rolling your eyes and dumping any emotional conflict. “Jesus dick, I can see how absolutely unbearable it is for you to be slathered in luxury.”

“Shut up and eat your neon ambrosia, jackass.” He says, and releases you to shove a spoonful in his mouth.

You take the opportunity while the gettin's good (almost tipping your chair with how hard you yank your hands back) and try to discreetly wipe your sweaty palms on your pants. Apparently, you fail to be discreet, because he's laughing at you now, a low, rumbly string of chuckles. You grimace at him even as you quietly study the way his nose crinkles up.

“What?” You say, the slightest bit defensively. His head tilts to the left and he smirks just enough that one of his canines glints through his lip. Simple, like that. 

“I dunno, man,” he says, shrugging in your general direction, and digs into his steadily cooling pasta.


End file.
